HLTB01 Lecture 9.pdf

HLTB01 Lecture 9
November-06-12
3:09 PM
Cue Column: Note-Taking Area:
Research Methods
• Age effects (biological changes)
• cohort effects (something in generation)
• environmental effects (point in time)
• Research
○ Cross-sectional
 Group of people in 1 point of time
 Snapshot
 Ex. Intelligence test (old vs. young)
□ Older scored worse
 Problem: 1 period of time
 Range of different age groups
 Concern:
◊ Cohort effects - education (younger had
more education)
○ Longitudinal
 Group of people in 2/more periods of time
 Ex. How aging effects intelligence overtime; test same
age group at different intervals (ex. From 25 to 80 years
old --> same group from start to end)
□ Process of aging
○ Time-lag
 Same age, diff periods of time (25 year olds in 70s, 80s
etc.)
○ Sequential design:
 Series of cross-sectional and put them in longitudinal
□ Snapshots over time
• Methods
○ Quantitative
 Relationships between and among numerical
measurements
 Pro: gather wide range of data on lot of issues & can
generalize
 Con: only certain questions (no insight/reason)
○ Qualitative
 Pro: open ended questions
 Con: limited to small samples (can't generalize)
• Research
○ Goal: to reduce uncertainty about important issues
• Research Methods
○ Open-end
 What did you have for breakfast
○ More specific
 Did you skip breakfast? Yes/no
○ Specified response options
• Sampling
○ Process of selecting small sample that can generalize results
to population
○ Population vs. sample
 Census: survey collection of entire population
○ Target population: population want to observe
○ Sample/survey population: population can observe
• Random sample ○ Target population: population want to observe
○ Sample/survey population: population can observe
• Random sample
○ Items drawn from population in such way each time an item